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Indg201 EdwSaidOnColonialism
Indg201 EdwSaidOnColonialism
on Colonialism
and ‘Othering’
Who Was Edward Said?
- very influential writer on colonialism.
• Value
- offers insights about colonialism
from the perspective of one who
has been colonized.
We can often generalize what he
says about “The Orient” and
“Orientalism” to the relationship
of Indigenous peoples with
colonizers elsewhere in the
world.
- forms the basis of many Indig
intellectuals’ challenges to cultural
colonialism
Some Questions Raised by Said
• How did/do different academic disciplines
come to the service of Orientalism’s
broadly imperialist view of the world?
• How does Orientalism transmit or
reproduce itself from one epoch to
another?
• How does authority operate – what ideas
does it dignify as true? What perceptions
and judgements does it reproduce and
transmit? Who are the pioneers whose
texts became authoritative and get cited
frequently in the academic literature?
• How do the colonizers’ depictions of the
colonized society reflect the strong ideas,
doctrines, and trends of the colonizers’
own society?
– e.g. Darwin’s influence, Freud’s influence,
racist authors’ (e.g., de Gobineau)
influence?
• Can one divide human reality into such
clearly distinct categories – “we” and
“they” – and survive the consequences
humanly? (i.e., avoid creating hostility)
Said’s Approach in
Orientalism
Analyzed the writings (“texts”) of
others, especially how they present
colonized societies to their readers in:
• political tracts,
• journalistic stories,
• travel books,
• religious books,
• scholarly works,
• poetry, and
• novels.
(Said calls this an analysis of the text’s surface
or exteriority, as opposed to an analysis of
what lies hidden in the text. )
• SUPERIORITY / INFERIORITY:
- Those in the West saw themselves not
just as different, but as superior in
comparison to all non-European
peoples and cultures.
That became hegemonic (dominant
and accepted by consent as
conventional wisdom or common
sense) in Europe. (A. Gramsci)
The Colonized as ‘Object’
to the Colonizer
• Knowledge = Power/Domination
For the colonial regime to have knowledge
about a colonized people is to dominate it,
to have authority over it.
• Expansionism
Orientalism (c.f. Native Studies) increases in
geographic and disciplinary scope/ inclusiveness
/eclecticism, rather than moving to greater
selectivity. e.g., takes in history, archaeology,
economics, literary studies, sociology, etc.
• Blind Spots
- often the contemporary.
• Over-Generalization
The Orientalist, Said says, makes a
generalization out of every observable detail and
out of every generalization he makes an “immutable
law” about the Oriental nature, temperament,
mentality, custom, or type.
The imaginative ‘knowledge’, which is often
highly romanticized, takes on a life of its own
(myth) and some who think those myths are
truths are very disappointed when they actually
encounter the Orient first-hand and have it de-
mystified.
The Orientalist’s Vision
• Rigidly Hierarchical
Place and position are important.